BNE Partners with Wildlife Queensland

4 June 2013

Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) has pledged its support to Wildlife Queensland in a three year, $240,000 partnership that will help to promote and enhance the ecological values of Moreton Bay through community based action.

BAC’s sponsorship will support Wildlife Queensland’s Seagrass and Mangrove Watch programs that harness a community volunteer approach whereby the ongoing monitoring of the health and abundance of Seagrass and Mangrove communities in the Bay is done by environmentally interested and invested citizens.

Julieanne Alroe, BAC CEO and Managing Director, said the partnership was borne out of commitments made by BAC in connection with the construction of the New Parallel Runway (NPR) and had been the subject of long term discussions between BAC and Wildlife Queensland.

“Brisbane Airport is very proud to be able to provide this vital funding to support the good work of Seagrass Watch and to establish Mangrove Watch as a complementary program as successful as Seagrass Watch.

“There is a long history of consultation between Wildlife Queensland and BAC and it was an obvious partnership when we were looking for a range of projects to invest in as part of the environmental compensatory package for the development of the new runway.

“The Seagrass and Mangrove Watch programs are a perfect fit for BAC's long term community and environment commitments and aspirations and we look forward to being a part of this valuable monitoring program,” Ms Alroe said.

Simon Baltais, President of Wildlife Queensland, said they were delighted with the sponsorship from BAC adding the funding from BAC represents the vast majority of their funding for these programs for the coming years.

“BAC’s contribution will allow us to continue with monitoring seagrass and mangrove areas that are important ‘indicator species’ that can reveal a lot about the overall aquatic health of an area - good or bad from their general state of abundance and health.

“The power of the Seagrass and Mangrove Watch programs is threefold, it strengthens the community's understanding and awareness of the health of its local environment, it adds to regional and international understanding of the health of the global environment; and it delivers a breadth and depth to the monitoring capability of an area which would be otherwise far too expensive for government or science agencies to collect themselves,” Mr Baltais said.

Wildlife Queensland trains the volunteers in the professionally developed monitoring methods to ensure the information is collected and recorded in a consistent and replicable manner.

The sites studied are located across the breadth of Moreton Bay and is then provided to James Cook University for analysis and goes on to be shared with other Seagrass and Mangrove Watch programs around the world.

Seagrass Watch started in 1998 in Queensland and has now expanded to 26 countries, including a large focus in the Indo-Pacific region.

The end result of enduring monitoring programs such as these is that it provides the scientific community with an invaluable, continuous, consistent data set which can be used to develop improved management practices and target negative impacting processes.

For further information about Wildlife Queensland’s Seagrass and Mangrove Watch programs please see www.wildlife.org.au.